Fashion fan searches see H&M, Zara, Asos and French designers riding high

H&M remains the most popular fashion brand globally with Zara, Adidas, Asos and Nike also in the top five of brands consumers are searching for, new figures show.

Fashion shoppers are searching for luxury brands in big numbers but mass-market brands attract the biggest interest But in the UK, Asos is in top spot alongside struggling New Look, with Topshop and Zara following some way behind.

The figures, from SEMrush, cover the 12 months up until June in the case of the global data and the 12 months to May for the UK, and are based on analysis of searches.

As mentioned, H&M topped the global list with more than 30 million searches worldwide each month during the period. Inditex’s Zara won its second place with 25 million searches a month and Adidas and Nike shared third place with Asos on over 15 million monthly searches each globally.

Also popular were Forever 21, Next, Old Navy, Louis Vuitton and Gucci, which meant a strong showing both for ultra-affordable fashion and ultra-luxury.

In fact, French super-luxe brands seemed to be particularly popular, with Vuitton enjoying over 6 million searches a month globally, and Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior and Givenchy also scoring strongly.

When it comes to UK-specific data, luxury has to take a back seat as clearly, Britons favour affordable fast-fashion over high-end brands, with Asos and New Look both enjoying more than 4 million searches each. Given New Look’s situation though, it could be that many consumers were seeking information on its CVA as much as looking to buy its products.

Meanwhile, Topshop and Boohoo were in joint second place and both saw over 2 million monthly UK searches.

Next on the list were Zara, H&M and Boohoo’s PrettyLittleThing, which saw 1.8 million searches each. Misguided and Primark were high on the UK search list too, in fourth place at 1.5 million. That’s interesting given that Misguided is a mainly online brand but Primark operates only from physical stores and its website is for information/inspiration only so any searches wouldn’t have resulted in online sales.

Fashion fans are searching online for a raft of brands from the most affordable fast fashion names to ultra-luxury Nike and Adidas were the most popular sports brands in joint fifth place with 1 million searches, with their nearest competitors (New Balance and Puma) following much later on the list and just scraping into the top 15.

Below the top five spots, there was an interesting mix of mass-market, premium and luxury names. Urban Outfitters, for instance, was sixth (over 800,000 monthly searches) with Ted Baker and Gucci joint seventh. Louis Vuitton and Hermès were eighth while North Face, Jack Wills, Forever 21 and Michael Kors were ninth. Uniqlo, Tommy Hilfiger, Zalando and Swarovski rounded out the top 10 with Gap and Rolex in 11th place.